Hello and welcome to autumn – today I paid for another year of Sticky Jam Hands to exist so I’m here to write my annual ‘I don’t really have anything to say but I need to get my money’s worth’ post.

Lucy started gymnastics class on Tuesday and she really liked it – in fact she loved it (she corrected me emphatically on that point). Being a new gym Mom I did a couple things wrong, like I didn’t pull her hair back tight enough and by the end of class it was all in her face. Also I told her she needed to wear underwear under her leotard. You are not supposed to wear underwear under your leotard – apparently. But at one point during class her friend Emily (who is in the know and going commando) asked Lucy why she had on underwear to which Lucy replied” You HAVE to wear underwear Emily, otherwise everyone can see your VAGINA!”

This last weekend we had our monthly craft night – it was the only craft night I’ve been to in four months because apparently I go away every third weekend of the month. We made pickles and you can read about it here: https://artistryinalcohol.wordpress.com (a girl can’t have too many blogs, you know).

I was recently given a column to write in my company’s weekly newsletter and I was really excited about it until I submitted my first article to my boss and she sent it back with 90% of the funny red lined out and the comment, “do you think we have a sense of humor? Cause we don’t” and I wanted to write back to her and say “but we should! That’s why I’m here!” but instead I made the edits she suggested and a small part of me died inside. I’m a little less excited about this now.

Things I meant to do during my stint on unemployment:

• Go to the dermatologist
• Organize the laundry room
• Teach the dog to walk on a leash without pulling
• Learn new healthy dinner recipes my whole family would love

Things I actually did do while on unemployment:

• Find good people who were willing and able to drink wine with me at noon
• Institute mandatory cuddle time for the first 15 minutes after coming home from kindergarten
• Learn how to do Romanian deadlifts with a 45-pound kettle bell
• Vacuum so much I actually broke the vacuum cleaner

Things I feel like I would do if I didn’t ever have to go back to work:

• Become an alcoholic
• Barricade myself in the office and write a novel I would be too terrified to actually share with anyone and would only be discovered after my death with a lot of tear stains and spelling errors
• Committ our wifi pssword to memmory
• Empty the litter box more often (this ones questionable, I might just teach the cat to use the toilet)

Things I’m looking forward to about going back to work:

• Less pressure to have a clean house
• Actually having a reason to drink in the evening
• Not having to avoid eye contact with people who commiserate with me about how hard their jobs are
• Less free time to spend at Home Goods

I returned to work today after a glorious thirteen day break, below are some statistics I compiled in those thirteen days:

• It takes approximately five days off in a row to digress to my adolescent self where I stay up until 1:00 in the morning and sleep until 10:00am
• If left alone without the pressure to entertain or be anywhere on time it takes approximately 27 minutes for our house to go from clean and ‘organized’ to complete chaos and disorder.
• Without the burden of work or commitments I could easily spend eight hours a day coloring in princess coloring books.
• I may be an alcoholic – this is less of a statistic and more of a general understanding of myself based of the ridiculously large quantities of wine I have consumed in the past two weeks.
• In the past thirteen days I believe I have taken four showers and one bath (that’s a 38% bathing rate)

I have exactly 17 hours left to work at my current job (more on that later) and besides shredding all of the paper on my desk and forwarding client inquires to my new replacement I’m kinda at a loss for what to do. I have extensively researched the new HGTV dream home – I have rearranged some furniture in my head to make it perfect for my family when we move in there – I have decided which window I will set my easel up against… Come on HGTV – if you pick me to win I will totally change this blog to be all about living as a hermit in my Martha’s Vineyard dream home and spending my days drinking wine and painting the ocean… everyone would want to read that, am I right?

I have some kind of universal balance where I am not allowed to have all my shit together at once. I have a system of losing things, important thing you know like wallets, keys, driver licenses, my husbands social security card… Honestly, I’m surprised that I’ve managed to hold on to Lucy for four years and not leave her on the top of the paper towel dispenser in Chilis.

Several months ago I lost my work ID, the ID I need to get in to my building, to go to the gym, to do just about anything in or around campus. I didn’t really worry about it at the time, I go days without ever leaving my desk and who wants to shell out $20 for a replacement card if they don’t have to?

The only problem is that I get to work really early, like before almost everyone and in order to get in the building I wold loiter hooker-style outside until someone more responsible came along and opened the door so I could sneak in behind them. This went on for some time until I realized that I took the train with a vice president of something-or-other that also worked in my building and if I walked from the  station with him I could guarantee myself entry.

This worked well until he realized that I was shadowing him the three blocks to work, on purpose. Being a nice and reasonable fellow he began walking with me which meant that I now needed to make small talk with a vice president of something-or -other at 7:15 in the morning – every day. Ugh, I wont even talk to my husband at 7:15 in the morning – I only grunt and push him out of the way of the coffee maker…

Several weeks went by and I realized that I had to finally give up the $20 to regain my freedom in the morning and so one day I went to the ID office and received a new card with a truly shitty picture of me on it (think autistic child molester). I thanked the 17year old co-op as I wondered what it would take to change jobs with him and my hand to god not five minutes later I discover that I had lost my monthly train pass, my $135 monthly train pass.

I was so annoyed with myself for losing my pass and with SEPTA for charging me $135 to ride on a loud, hot, crowded. uncomfortable train for an hour everyday that I decided not to replace my card but to start driving to work instead. I figured if I get in to the city early enough I won’t have to pay for parking and somehow between all the free parking and the really good gas mileage I get I might end up even or maybe a little bit a head by month end.

And it went well – I realized that because of my hours its actually less time in the car than in the train and I don’t have to pay to park my car at the station and I can leave work and go directly to pre school without any delays.

Maybe I got cocky, who knows but just a few days after realizing that maybe I don’t need a train pass I was getting out of my car one morning and my phone mysteriously jumped out my of suit pocket and landed on the cement sidewalk instantly shattering in three places.

I swear to all of you it was like some kind of cosmic miracle – I never touched the phone, it sits in that pocket all the time and has never once jumped for no reason.

The good news now is that I believe I have once again regained stasis – I can get myself into work (and I suppose the gym if I ever find out where it is) but I can only see about 17% of my phone screen. Maybe if I get my phone fixed I can trip and fall and throw our garage door opener into the creek behind our house…

If you give a three year old a muffin chances are that she’ll want to help you make them.

So you let her help, and she will immediately pour milk all down the front of her.

So you’ll send her upstairs to change her clothes.

She’ll come back 27 minutes later in a pair of underroos and stripped leg warmers.

You’ll send her back upstairs.

She’ll come back with a matching pink tutu and a tiara, she’ll ask for a snack.

You’ll remind her you are making muffins, because by now she’s completely forgotten.

She’ll ask you what kind of muffins your making, you’ll tell her blueberry.

That will remind her of Blueberry’s for Sal and she’ll run back upstairs to get it.

Two minutes later you’ll hear her yelling “no stop it! Stop it!”

You’ll go upstairs and find out that she’s screaming at her evil twin that lives in the mirror in her bedroom.

You’ll remind her again that the mirror is simply a reflection of herself.

At this point the smoke detector will go off from the burning muffins you also forgot about.

Your three year old will freak out and try to run outside in her underroos.

You will hold her in one arm while climbing onto the living room side table to turn off the smoke detector.

Right at that moment she will remember the muffins and want one really bad.

So you will drive to Starbucks, buy her a blueberry muffin while you doctor up your vanilla latte to get rid of your raging headache.

Most of the time my office is pretty crazy, it’s like I get to work and 50 people are yelling “run Becca, run faster! Run up that hill, run! run! run!” and I spend the morning sprinting and sweating and in general feeling like I’m not fast enough. And then there is a sweet hour in the middle of the day that is just for me – and during that hour my one friend at work and I commiserate how much all of the running sucks and we give each other pep talks and eat lots of frozen yogurt to build up our strength and then we put our heads down and run back into the melee.

But this week we seem to have hit some kind of mid summer research doldrums, like we are in the middle of the Atlantic waiting for NSF to call… So, I have had some down time which has been weird but nice so I thought I would pay some attention to this website. Not that I’m writing this at work – if you are reading this and I work with you I’m totally not writing this at work, I’m sure that violates some kind of University policy, also if you read this and I work with you how did you get here? You should not know this page exists and I am not the Becca that you think I am.

Tomorrow  my one friend (see above) leaves for vacation and I am frantically trying to figure out how to fill my one sweet hour in the middle of the day.  I’m afraid if I don’t plan some things than I will end up working at my desk and forgetting to look up and take a breath, like that one time when she called out sick. To that end I have made  lunchtime appointment to get some waxing done. This reminds me of my favorite blonde joke:

A man sits down next to a blonde on a plane, she is reading the newspaper and visibly upset, he glances at the headline which reads “Six Brazilian dead in plane crash” She tearily looks over at him and says “How many is a Brazilian?”

I can say these things, I’m totally blonde – also I wanted a nice segway to telling you that I’m getting all of my lady parts waxed. I’ve never done this before and I’m terrified, not of the pain or the procedure but because the woman who I go to scares the ever-loving bejesus out of me. Her name is Mila, she from somewhere deep inside the soviet bloc, she once called me a baby when my eyes watered while waxing my eyebrows. There are few people who instill fear in me as much as Mila and now I have an appointment to take my pants off in front of her. Good lord.

I’m doing this mostly because it scares me and its been over a year since I had to undergo any serious and painful surgerys and at least 18 years since my last tatoo. Sidenote – I also really want to get another tattoo but I’m indecisive and about what and where, I feel like I might be too old and too Mom to really go crazy. Also did you know you could get your tounge tattooed? I have so many questions about this photo but the first one would be ‘why not the sistine chapel?’ – be classy people!

One of the 43,000 things I do not understand is why postal workers feel compelled to educate you on the inner workings of the priority mail weight calculations or the exact regulations of what qualifies for media mail. Does this happen to everyone or do I simply look exceptionally interested in the mail? I once had a job where I spent hours/days/weeks at the post office and everyday it seemed like I was lectured to about bulk mailing weights and whatnot. And then, of course, there was the time where I was practically forced to join a crooked pyramid scheme (but that’s another post for another day).

Today I went to the post office and was schooled on how California has a different way of calculating first class mail and how I could pay less if I wanted to mail something heavier. I told her I didn’t have anything else that needed to go but at that moment I had a brief insight into her life outside of the USPS, sitting down eating dinner with her husband as she chirps excitedly, “today we got an internal memo that California is going to start calculating their first class mail differently – we had to re-calibrate all of the scales…!” as her husbands eyes glaze over and he reaches for the remote and she decides that perhaps she should impart this wisdom on someone actually AT the post office. It’s probably a lot like being a nuclear physicist, who else can you talk to but other nuclear physicists?

In other news, I stopped at Wawa to get lunch and decided on a fruit & cheese platter with hummus on the side, apparently my brain was already on happy hour mode at 11:45am.

I love bacon – I’m not really sure why more things aren’t infused with it – like butter or kale. I don’t think I’m alone in my dream of one day being able to walk into my local Target and picking up a bottle of bacon scented bubble bath… I think when people argue whose the bigger super power, us or China they should keep in mind who invented the loaded bake potato.

I do not have many skills, when people ask me what I’m good I really need to reach and say things like “I have very neat penmanship” or “I can drink an entire bottle of wine with dinner”  so far, none of these ‘accomplishments’ have landed me a job or gotten me a date (ok, maybe that last one)… Some people can speak multiple languages, or operate on new-born babies. It makes me glad that no one has had the need to put me in charge of the UN or insisted that I cut them open.

Ever since my surgery I feel like my the amount of random chin hairs that sprout on my face from time to time has dramatically increased. It makes me wonder if there is a connection between ones small intestines and facial hair follicles.

*Daily in this instance equates to sporadic

Below are randomly coppied snippets of emails sent from me between yesterday and April 2010. There is no logical reason or need for these and they are in no particular order. Someday I will get my act together and write a real post in the meantime…

Did you know that Mr. Clean magic erasers will take the finger nail polish right off of your fingernails? I think this is something you should know and something I just recently discovered when I became obsessed with cleaning the shit out of my stove this morning and went through two entire extra strength erasers and one very pretty, very red christmas manicure. Please make a note.

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My husband is, at this very minute, in the kitchen grilling me up some giant slab of steak and making creamy mashed potatoes with enough butter to stop my heart. I love that man. I have gotten myself all ready – wearing sweatpants and a hoodie – actually I am wearing sweatpants because I spilled like half a glass of wine on my favorite jeans when I was feeding Lucy dinner and I took them off instantly to clean the stain and throw them in the wash because I have no money to buy new favorite jeans…

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Thanks for liking my new website – do you have any idea how much jam and wet paper towels I went through to get that shot that is the header? A lot, a whole lot – Lucy was sticky for days – well for one day, she does get a really good bath every night. Although if I ever decide to give her giant globs of jam to play with again I will do it in the evening you know right before bath time and not right after breakfast so she’s sticky all day. My friend Jen was over that afternoon and says “Um, why does Lucy have jam in her neck?” huh. weird.

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P.S.I just reread this email – it is a grammatical nightmare that just rambles on and on – please note that I am on my 5th glass on wine. I would retype it but I’m too lazy and I’m not sure that it would come out any better…

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I have back heartburn – do you ever get that – it kinda feels like someone is stabbing you from the inside right between your shoulder blades? I hate when the people who live inside of me get mad – it hurts like a son of a bitch.

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I am very excited because in a crazy panic today I went and got my hair cut (when don’t I get my hair cut in a crazy panic?)… Anyway – its all cute and blown dried and I have bangs, I have bangs like this photo of Reese Witherspoon…. I actually just went in there and said “Hi, Lisa – my hair has been in a pony tail for 12 months now – please make me look like Reese Witherspoon”… Never having met Lisa before she was a little taken aback… But whatever she gave me a great haircut and then I got my eyebrows waxed – apparently EVERY woman in the world does this… the woman who waxed them for me took one look at my face and said “good god” and then basically asked what was wrong with me – I told her I thought that when they were plucked for my wedding they looked nice and she raises an eyebrow and says “you still married?” (in her crazy, thick Ukrainian accent). And then when I was done she said “You see – you have pretty eyes, they are blue – I did not see them before…”

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Today may or may not be your birthday – if you were paying attention yesterday you would know that despite my remarkable memory and my knowledge of useless facts like that sea turtles can’t produce offspring until they are 25 years old… I cannot for the life of me remember which day your birthday is. Maybe it was yesterday and you went out and had a great time and drank so much that you forgot to email me. In which case I forgive you, if yesterday wasn’t your birthday and you didn’t go out and party like it was 1999 than I’m super mad and will never forgive you – because you know I need my daily email.  Anywho – Happy birthday if its applicable.

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At home, things are fine – last weekend we finally bought good patio chairs – swivel mesh rocking things – they are so comfy that I’m trying to spend as much time outside as possible especially since its getting nice here. Lucy continues to get more and more adorable and I am now thinking that it probably would have been easier/better to have an ugly kid since I fear this is only going to make trouble for all of us as she gets older – but there’s really nothing I can do about that since I am unwilling to burn her with acid or anything.

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I’m starting to feel better – like my cold has gone, which is kind of a bummer because there, too, goes my excuse for daily shots of nyquil. I would continue to take it anyway except I’m pretty sure Lucy gets a healthy dose of it for breakfast in the morning – it does make her mellow and easy, but I worry about ‘development’ you know – because I read stuff.

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And that about brings you up to speed – I just went to get my afternoon cup of coffee and poured a whole quart of milk all over the hallway (carpeted) in the office. That really illustrates how my day is going…

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I guess that all the news from the east side – I feel like I should have more exciting stuff to regale you with – but I can’t think of anything. I’m tired and pregnant and live from one meal to the next (I had a chocolate chip muffin for breakfast and a grilled chicken pita for lunch if you would like to know) I plan on having leftover chili for dinner tonight.

On my drive home last night I saw what appeared to be a band of gypsies huddled under the bridge across the street from the zoo (it was raining really hard, thus the huddling). I thought briefly of stopping and asking if they were taking on any new members. I thought leaving my office job and raising Lucy in a caravan of old gypsy souls might be just the thing that I was searching for, but as I slowed down I began to notice their rag-tag appearance, the notable lack of shoes on their kids and the serious deficiency of teeth in the adults. Upon closer inspection I realized that perhaps these wernt gypsies after all but just a group of Philadelphia homeless that had happened upon some brightly covered scarves.

Disappointed I continued on my way thinking that perhaps I should cast a further net than just the corner of Girard and 34th streets if I want to find a true band of gypsies and also maybe I should clear this with my husband before I quit my job and buy some long skirts.

Note to self: find out when the circus comes to town.